Robbers hit in Spring Valley, National City

A pair of armed robbers hit a Spring Valley convenience store Thursday night and may be the same men who held up a store in National City 20 minutes later, authorities said.

Two men in masks and gloves pointed handguns at a clerk and customers in a 7-Eleven on Grand Avenue in Spring Valley. They took cash from the registers and a watch from one customer, sheriff’s Sgt. Carlos Medina said.

They left southbound in a tan Lincoln Navigator SUV and the clerks reported the holdup at 10:08 p.m.

Exactly 20 minutes later, an employee at a 7-Eleven on North Highland Avenue in National City called police to report being robbed. The gunmen matched the description of the Spring Valley robbers, Medina said.

Hours later, San Diego police found a stolen Lincoln Navigator, possibly the one used by the robbers, abandoned in an alley off Gamma Street in southeastern San Diego.